


Stay with me?

by Jailinsgalaxies



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Barney is Orpheus, But its gay, Fluff, Gordon is Eurydice, I guess???, I will reference hadestown sorry, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Mute Gordon Freeman, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Selectively Mute Gordon Freeman, brief mention of animal deaths, but i am using proper versions of the story in my research as well, if i say lute instead of lyre bonk me directly on the head, no beta we die like men, orpheus and eurydice au, sort of in the times of the original myth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jailinsgalaxies/pseuds/Jailinsgalaxies
Summary: What you see is what you get, I love this myth and am using a few different tellings of the myth to write this and adding my own personal touches so sorry if this doesn't fit the telling you know.it's gonna hurt by the end so get strapped in.
Relationships: Barney Calhoun/Gordon Freeman
Kudos: 6





	1. The Seasons have Changed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lets meet this Gordon in a very short chapter.  
> They'll be longer once I actually start the story story.

The story is one starting in despair. The wind and seasons came and went as they wanted, leaving the people with undergrown vegetables and fruit the moment they thought that they would get a harvest this time. The Gods were never so generous to allow a fruitful harvest, if they even allowed one at all. The Fates were cutting strings more and more, as if humans were meant to become extinct soon. Many people would try to move towards wherever the season had decided to sit, but it was hard work, harder with multiple mouths and many families could not make it.  
One hungry young man chased the wind, some would even think the wind chased him. No matter what he swore to not get attached to anyone, for it not to hurt when he had to leave. And it’s hard to get attached when people won’t communicate with you in the first place. There was no real reason he left places, he always just knew it in his gut when he had to leave. Bag already packed he would escape whatever town, city or forest he lived in while the seasons allowed. Chasing the sun with any plants he got to live stuck into all of the messily sewn cow skin sachets he could make, ready to be stuck back into the ground when he found solace. Not many of them survived, but the ones that did could keep him along, you can’t get sentimental to things that are already dead, he knew, you have to be happy for the things that are alive. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier, but it does push it down enough to avoid the feelings.  
Of course he had loved people, the early days of despair felt less permanent, like everything would work out. But now he knew different, he knew not to trust songs of triumph anymore. He only loved what sustained him, the berries found when nothing should grow, the animals slung with his bow, he was in love with being alive and yet didn’t feel like he was. This loveless man’s name is Gordon Freeman.


	2. The Muses Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woah Barney time, the chapters will be longer after this but I had to set up characters.

Even during the seasons, some people stayed put, their reasons always different, family, old supplies of food, believing the Gods will spare them. This young man had a reason most mortals didn’t understand, no matter if the trees were dead or fruitful, there was a music to them, beautiful and enchanting. The young man was comparable to Apollo himself on the lyre, but whenever he tried to recreate the tree’s song it felt as though he had missed a note. He didn’t go to the neighboring town often, he preferred to sleep on the branches high in the air, the music vibrating through his body as he slept.   
The young man loved unconditionally, and people loved him back, but only when he held his lyre. He could love whoever caught his eye, but he would never be in love and neither would the other party. This would’ve made most men give up, but he was stubborn in his ways and would continue to search for someone to love him back. Until then he will sing his songs alone, and when the deer and foxes came to listen, he’d continue until he couldn’t speak.  
It wasn’t as hard to live in these times for him. When he replicated the tree’s music he could get a fruit or two, inversing the music of an animal would kill them painlessly. Of course it felt bad, taking their life, but it was to sustain another. He would bury what he could of them with a coin, praying that the burial rites were the same for animals. He wanted to stop feeling like he held life and death in his hands, like he was just a human. This unconditionally loving man’s name is Barney Calhoun.


	3. Chasing the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally meet.
> 
> Also sorry for the POV change halfway through the chapter, I didn't notice it until I was too far into it to change it all.

Gordon needed to do what he did best, run. Chasing the sun, only taking breaks to fill up his waterskin. He knew where he needed to go was far, and to survive he needed to get there as fast as he could. He ran and ran until the stars shone above his head, greedy eyes of the Gods who wanted him dead, but who was he to listen to them, hiding under the shades of pomegranate trees to obscure their gaze. “What a hilarious find in the middle of the quarrel of Hades and Persephone.” The young man thinks to himself, picking off the ripe fruits for himself. Deeper and deeper in the trees he hears nothing, no animals, no wind, just the sound of the leaves he steps on. The possibility that every animal has died for someone's food lays in his head, but the possibility that he may become the quiet creature's food is much more concerning. There's a far overgrown walnut tree sitting in the forest, with surprisingly animals, predator and prey all silently sleeping under, but even more surprising is the man up on a high branch, barely able to see except for the loose hand dangling down. The young man would leave, avoid anyone he comes across, especially a random forest boy, but he knew deep in his heart this was where the season would stay. He quietly stepped to a patch of dirt, close enough to a sleeping wolf to make him uncomfortable, and buried his plants, not remembering which ones were which. Looking up the tree and down at the animals, he knew the best decision. Halfway to pulling up on the lowest branch the wolf awakens, but instead of attacking it just looks around, pacing itself in a circle before resting yet again. After climbing up, still many branches below the other man, he breathes slowly, opening up the pomegranate and eating greedily from it.  
He was woken up far too soon, the sound of a snapping branch sends panic through his mind, but thankfully it's not the one he rested on. Looking around he sees the man, falling so quickly past him, by the brief look at his face he looks the same age as him, maybe even younger. Quickly before he hits the ground his body catches on another branch, maybe a foot or two below Gordon, but something else hits the ground, sending the two to look down to the fallen lyre, but after a moment he looks back at me, grinning sheepishly. His eyes seemed to reflect the sky within their center and when he spoke his heart clenched in his chest.  
“Are you okay? Nothing hit you on the way down?” I can only nod along. When he jumps down from the branch he stood on the animals make way for him, his right hand runs through a wolf's fur lazily, it's a scary act of trust on both parts and makes Gordon thankful he’s still in the tree. As the wolf walks away the young man holds the lyre for a moment staring at it before propping it up against the trunk of the tree. He looks at me before speaking up again. “They won’t hurt you, you can come down.” I begin to untense all the muscles that I didn’t know were tense and bring myself down branch by branch. He offers his hand and I almost take it. Most of the animals have scattered away by the time I’m on the ground. Without asking the man grabs my bag and looks through it, giggling to himself when he sees the sachets. “I could give you sewing lessons if you’d like.” He pulls a loose thread from the one he's holding and when I only offer a shrug he tilts his head to the side. “A man of few words I guess.” He hands my bag back to me and searches along the ground for what seems like nothing, I’m more baffled when he grabs a decent sized stick and writes on the dirt. “Can you write?” He speaks while writing it, his writing ability looks rusty at best but when the stick is handed to me I hold it firmly, writing a quick ‘Yes’ on the ground.  
He sighs in relief when he read the word. Looking at me with such excitement I can’t not grin back. “So, what's your name? I’m Barney.” My eyes lock on his for a moment too long after he speaks, it's been so long since someone had given me their name. He gestures towards the ground awkwardly and I remember to write, ‘Gordon’. Barney seems like the type to not be able to read well, not just by the leaves and flowers contrasting his black hair, but by the many moments of pondering before responding. “Gordon huh,” It’s a foreign word on his tongue. “How long you staying?” I shrug while wiping off the words on the ground, attempting to be able to use the space again, ‘Until I leave’. He seems at least a bit content with the vague answer, walking away to eye the new plants in the ground. He reaches to his instrument but it's a bit out of his reach, after watching him struggle I hand it to him. He puts his hands on the ground next to the plants and hums as if he's learnt something new. Curiously I sit next to him as he strums and vocalises. It’s a pretty song, one I never heard before and I stare at him until something in my peripheral catches my eye. Looking down to the plants they’ve grown twice their size, even some of them have almost ripe berries. I look at him with disbelief as his song slows to a stop. “I’m not sure how I do it either.” Is the only explanation I can get out of him before he starts again. I can’t tell if I should look at Barney or the plants so I switch between to two often, picking off a bundle of berries when they look ripe and tasting. They’re probably the best I’ve ever had.


	4. Chasing You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uhh, i got in a bit of a writing rut for awhile and then got caught on other personal projects so sorry about the over a month in between chapters. This chapter is a bit of a short one but I'm working on the next one already.

The first week of the men knowing each other Gordon kept to himself. He allowed Barney to sing his garden along and they shared the fruits and vegetables they grew together, but the only time Gordon had heard Barney’s voice was his singing.   
The sun was setting, only visible on the high branch the two sat on. Barney’s head on Gordon’s shoulder, he was touchier than Gordon expected but he never felt the need to push him away. While running his hands through the others' longer hair, Barney spoke, mostly to himself. “It’s been a long time since I’d been able to know someone like this.” His hands migrate to fiddling with his clothes. He sucks in a breath as if he was going to speak again but nothing came out. It was only after the sun had long left the sky and the moon lit his face he silently motioned to go back down, grabbing Gordon’s waist to help with any large gaps between branches.   
Once the two were back on the ground Gordan had grabbed a stick, carving in the dirt beneath him. ‘What’s wrong?’ Gordon looked expectedly for an answer, eyebrows up and head tilted.   
Barney almost blew it off with a joke, he really wanted to, and the words he wanted to say flew past in his head too slow and too fast. “I, I want to talk more, I don’t want to coexist, I want us to be, friends?” His voice almost betrayed him again, his dumb romantic brain urging him to say the words he’d been thinking. “I like you alot, and I know one day you may leave but if you have to I want you to consider taking me with you.” The low light hopefully hid the tears threatening to leave his eyes. When he brought his eyes back to Gordon the man was smiling but his eyes looked hurt. “You don’t have to know now, I just want it in your thoughts, I’m getting to bed.” And with that Barney climbed up the tree to his usual spot, leaving Gordon standing there alone.


	5. Pomegranate Seeds

Gordon was terrified, and it was because he knew he wanted to take him, he just didn’t know how he would. The safety of running in the night and not letting anyone else know, he doesn’t think he could let go of that feeling. He slept with his bag in his hands.   
When his crusted eyes opened Barney was already singing and picking fruit, a dead rabbit over the fire. It looked like some kinda home he could never actually have, a taste of what could never be. Yet when Barney noticed him awake and brought him a pomegranate fresh off the tree he knew exactly how Persephone felt in the underworld. When caught just staring at the fruit his cause of distress spoke. “You gonna actually eat it or just stare?” His tone is playful and beautiful and Gordon hates every second of it, he wishes he could hate him and just get away.   
After Barney does every small bit of work he could do he looks Gordon in the eyes. “Can I ask something stupid? And if it is as dumb as I think it is, you can forget it, you can forget me even.” The pain in Barney’s eyes catches so much of Gordon’s attention he hardly notices his own nodding. Barney gives a curt nod before speaking again. “Gordon,” The name still sounding so foreign on his tongue. “I’ve been compared to Apollo in my talents, and while those comparisons are so far fetched, you, you are like Hyacinth.” He tucks a stray hair behind Gordon's ear. “A beautiful young man, fleeting though. I will not let my hopes get ahead of me, but you would be loved plentiful under me.” Gordon's stare is wide, it’s a choice of freedom or happiness, it hurts most that he knows he is in love, the familiar feeling of dread pools in his stomach. “But that is only if you take me.” Barney’s hand is stretched in front of him, fingertips stained with juice. His brain can’t say not to before his own hand is within the others. He doesn’t want to say no. The look of shock to happiness on Barney’s face makes him feel like melting, and when he pulls Gordon to a hug he almost does. Something was muttered into Gordon’s neck but he couldn’t begin to hear it, just grip at the mans back like if he let go he’d lose him.


End file.
